It’s the time for giving thanks and taking stock. With 2009 having been so terrible, I thought that I would take a look at the good things in my life.

My husband

My dearest DH is actually a really sensitive and soft being. He comes across as very nonchalant at first glance, however those who are dear to him will get his eternal loyalty. This has been a crap year for him too and I just hope that next year we can celebrate the birth either one of the embies on ice or one of the fresh ones. He has been so patient through this journey, I really am grateful for that.

My mom

Her heart is not only BIG, but it is also made of gold. She has supported me so much this year. I can’t even explain the value she adds in my life. She is always there for me to moan, or to give me comfort. One thing is for sure, any grandchild of this wonderful woman is sure to be spoilt. I’m not sure I’ll ever have to purchase baby clothes.

My Family

I have a brother who loves me so much and then a fantastci set of cousins who I consider siblings. We laugh together LOTS, party together and stick our noses into each others lives. I love them all so much and I am so grateful that we are close.

My BFF’s

I have my wonderful friend that I have known since college. We met on the first day of college and have been inseparable since. She is so empathetic and also a great support to me this year. I think that when you come across a relationship that is special you know and those relationships are so precious. Another precious relationship that I have formed this year is with my friend Joni. She helps me laugh and chill and not take life so seriously! Thanks Joni-kins.

My sista’s

I am grateful to have my fellow IF friends in my life. They have been a wonderful support for me this year. I am so glad that I have met all of you and hope that we can share many more fun times together next year.

My pets

Yes! This may seem corney, but I LURVE my sweet bulldogs (one is only half a bulldog). Many cuddles from these furry friends have comforted me. Many funny bulldog moments have made me laugh – Like the time my bulldog ate a Christmas beetle and then gave a huge yawn …..and the beetle flew out of his mouth! Hahahaha!

My home

I am grateful to be able to afford to live in a wonderful home like ours. There are many who can!

My new car

Thank goodness I got rid of that dam Renault! I now drive a second hand Toyota Yaris and I could not be happier. Especially when I hear that the services are MUCH cheaper.

It’s funny how a miscarriage can mess with your emotions.

Sometimes, I’m fine and then sometimes I’m not. I’m a little sensitive at the moment.

A couple of weeks ago I was very very angry again. It was that hot bubbling anger that makes you want to scream or punch someone. That anger that asks why? and How? and When? and eventually PLEASE PLEASE never again!  The crap thing is that there is nothing that anyone can do to make you feel better. You are stuck in this odd period of sadness, anger and there is nowhere for it to go. Noone that you can scream at! It’s noones fault! It JUST happened, you JUST lost your baby. And life goes on…….

I would have been about 36 weeks now. If all had worked out I would be meeting my little boy in two weeks time. So why think about it at all? Why not just put it out of my mind forever? Well, as I am learning, that is not possible. The sadness comes back at odd moments when you least expect it.

Like when I attended my cousins wedding a few weeks ago. I was sitting sipping on my wine listening to the speeches and then remembered a conversation I had with my aunt when she heard about my BFP in May. We discussed how I would be nearly due by the wedding and I wouldn’t be drinking blah blah blah. Yet there I sat watching my cousins one year old and sipping the wine a little faster.

I know that I can’t change what happened, but as it gets closer to my due date I feel like I need to acknowledge this loss of mine! It may have been forgotten by others, which is okay. But I feel like I-WANT-TO ACKNOWLEDGE where I would have been.

Is this normal!

This weekend we went to a wedding in Hazeyview, which is near to Nelspruit. I was a MISSION to get there as we drove most of the way in terrible terrible rain, but the wedding was very enjoyable. My dad and I went together as the bride was a business partner and friend of ours.

The bride is a wonderfully quirky, relaxed, special person and the wedding really mirrored her style and personality. The couple were wed outside with all the guests standing around the gazebo they got married under. Everyone was encouraged to get to get a drink to sip on during the ceremony and we were all given lovely parasols to hold.

The wedding speeches were very short and sweet, with very little formality. We ate and then everyone was encouraged to sit outside around bonfires with their drinks to hear the rest of the speeches. Small versions of hot air balloons were passed around and each guest was asked to write their wish for 2010 on the balloon. The balloons were then lit and sent up into the air. It was such a precious moment. Everyone cheered as each balloon took off into the sky, higher and higher until they could only be seen as small dots. It was a really lovely moment.

So I’m sure you can guess what my wish was…..

‘Please please can I have a child in 2010, I would be very grateful’

The year is almost over. I have two more weeks of work and then I can have a lovely three week break. I’m then looking forward to going on my 2010 health kick! No smoking, less wine and more exercise!

Please let it be a better year! We deserve it!!

Yesterday afternoon I went to go and visit my BFF. She is currently pregnant and I haven’t had a decent visit with her for so long due to my very busy life at the moment.

About three weeks ago she went for her eleven week scan and discovered that one of the twins she was carrying had not made it. An extremely bitter moment coupled with gratitude that the other baby is doing well.

Yesterday was the first time that I got to chat to her properly about her feelings. It just broke my heart to see her speak about the experience. “It was very difficult” she said with so much pain and sadness. And at that moment Miss Infertile me had no clue what to say. I had a taste of what it feels like to be on the other side of horrible news. I want to take it all away for her. I want to go back and DO SOMETHING to change things.

As infertiles we often feel that we have felt it all! Sometimes we can be arrogant about our hurt. The anger takes over and makes us unapproachable, a closed book that no one dare open because they don’t understand us. And then I’m reminded that the people who truly care for us FEEL IT too. They can never experience the pain we feel in the same way, but they feel a different kind.

Thank-you to all those on the other side of my journey. Soon we will all celebrate the end of this and I know you will feel my joy as intensely as you have felt my pain.

I can feel it! My mind set has definitely changed over the last few months and I am SO ready for my FET!!!

I know I may kick myself for saying this later, but I am so sure that it is going to work. I have a happy feeling inside and I can’t wait!!! I may even start the pill early. YAY!!!!

I keep have ‘pregnant’ thoughts and they don’t repulse me like they did before.

I’m so glad I waited!!!!

If you haven’t discovered the series Flight of the Concords yet I seriously suggest you give it a try. It may not be for everyone as it is quite offbeat, but it never fails to make me laugh.

Here’s a scene from the first series.

Tell me what you think?

If you were wondering when I was going to do my FET, you have come the the right place.

I have made the decision to stop smoking on the 1 Jan and go on the pill with my late Dec/early Jan cycle. That should mean that we can do a mid Feb transfer. We are going down to the coast over Valentines day, so I’m hoping that I’ll be in the TWW during that time. Not that I believe that relaxing has anything to do with a BFP! It will just be a nice, restful break.

I’m feeling ready now, and I am so glad I waited. Looking back it would have been a really bad decision to do my FET in Sep/Oct. There was so much that went wrong in my life then, it just wasn’t the right time. Although, I think the main problem is that I was simply not ready to do treatment. Something has changed in my heart recently and I now feel ready to go ahead. I feel ready to be pregnant again, whereas before the thought of being pregnant really stressed me out. I’m ready for hopefully a BFP and please please please doubling betas!

I will probably have to do some travelling after my FET.  Most of the projects I am working on have been moved out by a month or so. Mostly because people are taking their sweet time! This has moved my travelling out to March or April, but I’ve decided not to plan my FET around my travel. Work must fit in with treatment now! I have waited long enough.  The best thing is that I am getting lots of opportunities to work in SA, which possibly means that I can turn some offshore work down…….CHEEKY!

I’m not feeling 100% positive about this cycle. I’m not negative, I just really don’t know what to expect. Anything may happen.

We may get nothing to transfer.

We may get one or two embies, leading to a BFN or BFP!

I really don’t know.

I do feel that we will get a 2010 BFP though! We have decided that if we get a BFN for the FET we’ll go straight into a fresh cycle. I have a feeling that between the two cycles we’ll get our BFP. Hopefully on the FET, but if not then the fresh.

I dare say I’m looking forward to my FET! I can feel my mindset changing. I can actually ‘Think-Baby’ again, and I’m even interested in getting healthy!!!!  I am starting Pilates from next week and I am making more of an effort with my diet.

So who knows gals!

All I can say is GOODBYE CRAPPY 2009! HELLO 2010!!!!!

What a great weekend! It has easily been the busiest weekend I have had in a long time.

Here’s how it went.

Saturday

• We both wake up at 7:30 so I can leave by 8:30.
• DJ leaves to go to the birthday of  his assistants two year old daughter.
• I leave to go and watch my BFF’s son in his first play. He was a cowboy!
• Arrive in Florida at 9am – Watch the very cute play until 10am.
• Feel really teary by the end of the play.
• Rush off and have a small cry on my drive home.
• Phone my mom and Joni because I am feeling down…..Feel a bit better.
• Sweep and wash down the garage floor, while I wait for DJ to get back from the party.
• DJ gets back.
• We and visit my mom and have some lovely rye crisp breads. (Make mental note, must by rye crisp bread for home.)
• Go from my mom’s house to collect some beautiful wrought iron outside furniture.
• Load the furniture on the back of DJ’s bakkie.
• Realize that it won’t all fit and we’ll have to make another trip next weekend.
• Drive home very carefully.
• Get home and unload the 2 pool loungers and chairs.
• Go to the shop to buy some meat and wine to have a braai. Look for the red wine we had at bookclub (Cafe Culture) but can’t find it.
• Get the DVD Angels and Demons to watch after the braai.
• Go home and have a glass of wine under the gazebo.
• Have braai, watch movie, collapse into bed.

Sunday

• Wake up at 8:30 for some unknown reason.
• Get up have French toast and watch an episode of Will and Grace.
• Go the my old office to pick up a desk an cabinet.
• Figure out that the cabinet is VERY heavy and call a security guard to help.
• Load everything on the bakkie and drive home.
• Unload the desk, but quickly learn that it is too wide to fit up our stairs.
• DJ takes desk apart, moves it upstairs and re assembles it.
• Unload cabinet.
• Measure width of stairs to make sure it will fit.
• After lots of pushing and pulling  we get to the top of the stairs only to realize that the cabinet is too big because we haven’t taken the door frame into account.
• Start taking the very heavy cabinet back down the stairs.
• Loose my footing, cabinet slides down the stairs at full speed breaking a tile and crashing into my thighs (I now have two LOVELY bruises)
• We decide that the cabinet shall live in the garage.
• DJ kicks the cabinet out of frustration and hurts his toe….
• We take the cabinet to the garage and realise that we have to get rid of some junk in there.
• We load it all into the bakkie and take it to the dump.
• Not a word is spoken between the two of us as we are simply exhausted.
• Get home, have some wine and watch Four Weddings and a funeral.
• Make supper, watch two episodes of friends.
• Fall in to bed.

Needless to say my body is very very sore.

Hmmmm, I think things may be looking up.

The biggest worry in doing my FET was finding work that kept me in SA and I must say that it seems my efforts are paying off. I’ve been doing some networking and chatting to connections I used to work with ages ago and it seems that the opportunities are coming my way.

I’ve also joined a networking organisation called BNI, which I am totally sold on. The referrals I’m getting are so worth getting up early every Tuesday to meet.

I really just hope that all this continues. I’m trying to make up my mind if this is just luck or if my efforts have really paid off. I guess time will tell.

Oh and I must say that working from home is friggin awesome. I’m not sure who loves it more, me or my dogs.

Shaz’s post really spoke to me the other day. It took me back to the beginning of the year, when we were all in a different place. It made me think about the friendships that have been formed along the way and how special they really are. This may be mushy……but gals this is for you!!

I can never fully know your pain because it’s yours.

You can never fully know my pain because it’s mine.

But I thank God for your friendship every day, because you’re closer to knowing than most.

And even if I can’t fully know your pain I recognise of it.

I recognise the sadness,

Loneliness,

Anger,

the frustration and hope.

Sometimes, I don’t know what to say.

Sometimes, I can only imagine the place you are in.

Sometimes, I say the wrong thing.

But my heart only wants success and happiness for you in any form.

One day, somehow, we will find that place!

And where ever that place is….we’ll celebrate!

This is dedicated to the wonderful woman that I have cried, laughed and drank loads of wine with

And an extra dedication goes to Joni, as she celebrates her sweet son Adam.